


Buddy Flick

by greywash



Series: Spring Break Creative Calisthenics [9]
Category: Actor RPF (sort of), Spy (2015)
Genre: F/F, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Hollywood Meta, Spring Break Creative Calisthenics, Spy: Actual Perfect Movie 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 11:40:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6373300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/pseuds/greywash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What do you think for starters,” Nancy says, “teriyaki or hot pepper?”</p><p>“As long as original’s the entree,” Susan says, and Nancy hands her the pepper and a bottle of champagne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buddy Flick

**Author's Note:**

> Over spring break, [I am asking for some prompts on Tumblr](http://fizzygins.tumblr.com/post/141318279512/okay-so-i-have-been-having-an-awful-time-with) to help me shake out the writerly cobwebs. [havingbeenbreathedout](http://havingbeenbreathedout.tumblr.com/) requested: "Susan Cooper/Nancy Artingstall (or Susan Cooper & Nancy Artingstall), boozy sleepover. Alternately, Pam Poovey / or & literally anyone, boozy sleepover."
> 
> No warnings on this one, other than the sort of light consent issues warning telegraphed by the prompt. My full warning policy is in my [profile](http://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/profile#warnings); if you have any questions, please feel free to [email me](mailto:greywash@gmail.com).

Nancy wasn’t kidding about the bath. “It’ll help with the cramping!” she says. “Besides, that thing is the size of a swimming pool—terrorists have the best houses! It’s probably good I didn’t know that before,” she adds brightly. “Too late for a career change now!”

As it turns out the CIA actually _has_ taken over the villa next door. The suite Nancy’s claimed is on the second floor, which is decorated in a style that’s sort of Mid 90s Retro-70s Hollywood Bordello and features a truly hideous bedspread, but the tub in the pink-marbled bathroom is a vast, claw-footed affair, and someone’s left a decorative jar of bath salts next to it. Susan has to drag in a chair to climb in, but once she does it’s like sliding into the ocean, so vast she can stretch out her arms and her legs and not touch the sides, only it smells like oranges and Vicks VapoRub and the water is hot enough to leave her pink to her toes. Nancy, because she’s the best person Susan’s ever known, brings in a pair of eggplant-purple pajamas with white piping—cute!—in some deliciously soft, silky sort of material that slips and shivers over her skin and stretches with her when she twists, reaches up, bends down, giving her cramping muscles a stern talking-to.

By the time she toddles back out of the bathroom, flushed and damp with a towel in her hair, Nancy’s got her pajamas on and two bottles of champagne open and is sitting on the hideous bedspread cross-legged, arranging the beef jerky by flavor. “What do you think for starters,” she says, “teriyaki or hot pepper?”

“As long as original’s the entree,” Susan says, and Nancy hands her the pepper and a bottle of champagne. 

“I couldn’t find any proper champagne flutes downstairs,” Nancy explains, pouring champagne into a wine glass; and Susan says, “Oh, no, this’ll do me,” and tips the bottle back. 

Stopping terrorists. Thirsty work, as it turns out. 

“I can’t _believe_ ,” Nancy is saying, some time later. “I can’t _believe_ —”

“Wait,” Susan says, “is this your bottle, or mine?”

Nancy hesitates. “Isn’t this one mine?”

Susan squints. “That’s a shoe.”

“Oh!” Nancy straightens up. “Mine must be empty!” she says, and slides down onto the platform, weaving over the ice bucket she’d stolen from somewhere. She takes out the bottle and bends down to fish another one out of the case at the foot of the chair, which she jams down into the ice with a soupy, crunching sort of sound. “I can’t _believe_ you stopped international terrorists, Susan. You crashed a car! You fought your way into a helicopter!”

“You shot a man,” Susan reminds her, as Nancy clambers back onto the hideous bedspread. “Teamwork, as always. Though,” Susan says, a flock of giggles fizzing up in her chest, “that fight on the helicopter was pretty badass.” Nodding Nancy pops the cork; they clink their bottles; they drink. “Fine,” Susan confesses, “has never fought his way onto a helicopter.”

“Well of course he hasn’t,” Nancy scoffs, then bends forward, listing slightly to the right. “I think,” she says, confidentially, “that he knows that it’d mess up his hair,” and Susan starts laughing outright, loud and snorting, while Nancy beams at her, pink-cheeked and bright.

“They ought to make a movie,” Nancy says, then starts digging around for another pack of beef jerky; Susan starts tossing the empty ones aside, they’re just getting in the way. “Cooper. Susan Cooper,” Nancy intones. “You could be played by some glamorous actress, shooting bad guys, driving about Europe in fancy fuck-off cars. Ooh!” She claps her hands. “Katie Holmes! With your new hair!”

“Oh, please,” Susan scoffs, “go Catherine Zeta-Jones or go home,” and then takes another bite of jerky, chewing thoughtfully. “Who’d play you, do you think?”

“Probably some out of work soap opera sort,” says Nancy sadly, “who doesn’t mind sitting in a basement, with bats.”

“Hey, come on!” Susan pats her knee. “You were _integral_ to the _success of the mission_ , Nancy! You shot a man! You tackled 50 Cent!” She sticks the last of her jerky in her mouth. “It’d better be an American, I think, if I get Catherine Zeta-Jones,” she manages, still chewing. “Jennifer Aniston. Michelle Pfeiffer. Ooh! _Julianne Moore_.”

“She’s not American,” Nancy protests, tearing open another packet of jerky.

“Yes she is,” says Susan.

“No she isn’t!” 

“Yes she is,” Susan says, “you just think she’s British because she can act.”

“She was in _The End of the Affair_! I cried for a week!” Nancy sets the piece of jerky on her knee and digs out her phone. “See, I’m checking Wikipedia… Julianne… Moore—oh.”

“I told you,” Susan says. “Julianne Moore wouldn’t sit in a basement with bats. Julianne Moore would shoot people. _Julianne Moore_ ,” she says sternly, “ _would tackle 50 Cent_.”

“I did tackle 50 Cent, didn’t I,” Nancy observes, pleased, and drops her phone on the hideous bedspread, so she can go back to eating her beef jerky.

“The problem is, it doesn’t work as—” Susan waves a hand. “Fucking, _Cooper, Susan Cooper_ , does it?”

“Hmm,” says Nancy, chewing.

“Because he never actually hangs out with anyone who isn’t a twenty-year-old underwear model, and I think if you asked them most of them wouldn’t actually _want_ to give him any help.”

“They’d leave him boating around a lake, looking for Italy,” Nancy agrees, and then it takes them another ten minutes to stop laughing so hard they’ve spilled the champagne.

Flopped out on their backs they admire the swimmy yellow ceiling, the red bordello curtains. “I say, um. Mary and Rhoda.” Susan suggests. “Patsy and Edina.”

“Cagney and Lacey,” Nancy adds.

“Scott and Bailey!” Susan cheers.

The best thing about lying down is that they can’t see the hideous bedspread. “Catherine Zeta-Jones and Julianne Moore, better together!” Susan closes her eyes, wriggling closer. “Fighting crime!”

“Better together!” Nancy cheers, “Fighting crime!” and then tilts her head against Susan’s shoulder.

“You know Hollywood, though,” Susan says, thoughtful. “They’d probably end up fighting over a man, like in _Bend It Like Beckham_.”

“Originally they were supposed to be gay, in _Bend It Like Beckham_ ,” Nancy says.

“Oh, really?” Susan brightens. “Well, that’d be all right, then.”

“I think so,” Nancy agrees.

“I think we could successfully argue that Julianne Moore and Catherine Zeta-Jones are far, _far_ above fighting over a man,” Susan says, “so they’ll just have to be sleeping with each other!”

“Or tag-teaming, um. What’s his name, the little bendy one.”

“Zac Efron,” Susan says.

“Zac Efron!” Nancy says, breathless, delighted. “Ooh, they could do it in one of the fancy fuck-off cars!”

“They’d have to leave Zac Efron at home, if they want to fit in one of the fancy fuck-off cars,” Susan observes.

“Well, _I’d_ buy tickets,” Nancy says, and Susan turns her face down to kiss the side of her nose, her beaming flushed cheeks. “I’m glad I shot a man,” Nancy murmurs, and puts her arm around Susan’s middle. Squeezes tight. “I’m glad 50 Cent had a helicopter.”

Susan snuggles in close, tucks her cheek down against Nancy’s hair. “Me, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> There is also a Susan Cooper/Rick Ford mini-epilogue in the tags on [the Tumblr post](http://fizzygins.tumblr.com/post/141782852087/susan-coopernancy-artingstall-or-susan-cooper).
> 
> ~
> 
> And that's it, for my 9 45-minute ficlets in 9 days! A very big thank you to everyone who has followed along with this little exercise and submitted prompts! The full prompts list, which includes several prompts I didn't get to and all of which are up for adoption, is also up [on Tumblr](http://fizzygins.tumblr.com/post/141787333687/spring-break-creative-calisthenics-summary-post).


End file.
